# A list of open-source C++ libraries

From cppreference.com
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The objective of this page is to build a comprehensive list of open-source C++ libraries, so that when one needs an implementation of particular functionality, one needn’t to waste time searching on web (DuckDuckGo, Google, Bing, etc.)

If you know a library that might be useful to others, please add a link to it here. There are no restrictions on what can be included except that the source of the library must be readily available to download.

The page is provided “as is” - with the hope of being useful, but without any warranties. Outdated, misleading or wrong links might appear here. If you’ve noticed one of these, it would be great if you fixed the error.

Libraries: Table Of Contents
Package managers Libraries: Audio CD Fingerprinting Formats Tagging Benchmarking Communication Concurrency Configuration Command Line CSS HOCON JSON TOML XML YAML Containers Cryptography Databases Embedded languages bindings Embedded/Realtime File metadata Financial Calculations Game Engine Architecture General Multimedia Generic GPS Graphic user interface CopperSpice GTK+ Qt U++ Graphics Graphics (3D) Images Formats Plotting Image Processing Internationalization Logging Error handling Math Automata theory Class Library for Numbers Computational geometry Graph theory Linear algebra Machine Learning Numeral Calculations Optimization Symbolic expression manipulations Metaprogramming PDF Physics and Simulations Robotics Perception Serialization Binary serialization Sorting System Terminal Testing Text Coding Diff/Patch Format Parse Search Template Engine Version Control Video Web

# Package managers

Package manager | Description
--- | ---
build2 | An open-source (MIT), cross-platform build toolchain that aims to approximate Rust Cargo’s convenience for developing and packaging C/C++ projects while providing more depth and flexibility, especially in the build system.
cget | Cmake package retrieval. This can be used to download and install cmake packages.
cmodule | Non-intrusive cmake dependency management.
conan | Decentralized, open-source (MIT), C/C++ package manager.
CPM.cmake | A cmake script that adds dependency management capabilities to cmake. It’s built as a thin wrapper around cmake’s FetchContent module that adds version control, caching, a simple API and more.
hunter | A cmake driven cross-platform package manager for C/C++ projects.
spack | A package manager for supercomputers, Linux, and macOS. It makes installing scientific software easy. It isn’t tied to a particular language.
teaport | A cocoapods inspired dependency manager.
vcpkg | A C/C++ package manager for Windows, Linux, and macOS.
xmake | A cross-platform Lua-based C/C++ build tool and package manager.

# Libraries

## Audio

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Amplitude Audio SDK | A cross-platform audio engine designed with the needs of games in mind. (Src) | Apache-2.0 | cmake, vcpkg
Aquila | An open-source and cross-platform DSP library for C++11. | MIT | cmake
Aubio | A C/Python library for audio and music analysis. (Src) | GPL-3.0 | make
audioFlux | A C library for audio and music analysis, feature extraction. | MIT |
Essentia | An open-source library and tools for audio and music analysis, description and synthesis (MIR) (Src) | Affero GPLv3 |
FFTW | A library for computing the DFT (SSE/SSE2/AVX/Altivec/ARM Neon). (Src) | GPL-2.0 | cmake
FMOD | An easy to use cross-platform audio engine and audio content creation tool for games. | Free for non-commercial/Commercial | cmake
KFR | A fast, modern, C++17, open-source, cross-platform DSP/DFT framework, supports Audio resampling, FIR/IIR filters, Biquad, (SSE, AVX, AVX-512, ARM NEON). (Src) | GPL-2.0 | cmake
libsoundio | A C library for cross-platform real-time audio input and output. (Src) | MIT | cmake
Maximilian | C++ Audio and Music DSP Library. | MIT | cmake
Miniaudio | An audio playback and capture C library. (Src) | Unlicense | single source file
ni-media | C++ library for reading and writing audio files. | MIT | cmake, vcpkg
OpenAL | A cross-platform audio API. | BSD/LGPL/Proprietary | cmake
PortAudio | PortAudio is a free, cross-platform, open-source, audio I/O library. (Src) | MIT | cmake, vcpkg
rnnoise | Recurrent neural network for audio noise reduction. | BSD-3-Clause | make
SELA | SimplE Lossless Audio. | MIT | cmake
SoLoud | Easy, portable audio engine for games. | zlib |
Soundtouch | The SoundTouch is an open-source cross-platform audio processing library for changing the Tempo, Pitch and Playback Rates of audio streams or audio files. (Src) | LGPL-2.1 | make
Tonic | Easy and efficient audio synthesis in C++. | Unlicense |
Verovio | A fast and lightweight music notation engraving library. (Src) | LGPL | cmake, qmake
Wav2Letter++ | A fast speech recognition toolkit written entirely in C++ and uses the ArrayFire tensor library and the flashlight machine learning library for maximum efficiency. | Unlicense | cmake

CD

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
libkcompactdisc | A library for interfacing with CDs | GPL v2.0 | cmake

Fingerprinting

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
chromaprint | The Chromaprint is an audio fingerprint library designed to identify near-identical audio. It trades precision and robustness for search performance. Chromaprint can use multiple FFT libraries - FFmpeg, FFTW3, KissFFT or vDSP. (Src) | MIT, LGPL 2.1 | cmake
libmusicbrainz | The MusicBrainz Client Library (libmusicbrainz), also known as mb_client, is a development library geared towards developers who wish to add MusicBrainz lookup capabilities to their applications. The library supports Windows, Linux and Mac OS X (Src) | LGPL-2.1 | cmake
libofa | An open-source audio fingerprint by MusicIP | APL | make

Formats

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
AudioFile | A simple C++ library for reading and writing audio files. | MIT | cmake
audio_file | A library that handles reading and writing audio files in many common formats. (Src) | LGPL-2.1 | make
dr_libs | Single-file audio (FLAC, MP3, WAV) decoding libraries for C and C++. | Unlicense |
flac | The FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, meaning that audio compressed in FLAC has no loss in quality. FLAC stands out as the fastest and most widely supported lossless audio codec, non-proprietary, and unencumbered by patents. | Open Source, BSD, GPL |
LAME | LAME is a high quality MPEG Audio Layer III (MP3) encoder. | LGPL |
libsndfile | A C library with C++ wrapper for reading and writing files containing sampled sound (e.g. WAV, AIFF) through one standard library interface. (Src) | LGPL-2.1 | cmake, make, vcpkg
minimp3 | Minimalistic MP3 decoder | CC0-1.0 | header-only
Opus | A totally open, royalty-free, highly versatile audio codec. | BSD | cmake
Vorbis | Ogg Vorbis is a fully open, non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free, general-purpose compressed audio format. | BSD | cmake

Tagging

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
id3lib | An open-source, cross-platform library for reading, writing, and manipulating ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags, and retrieving some basic mp3 header info like bitrate. However, we now recommend moving to taglib :) | LGPL v2 |
taglib | The TagLib Audio Metadata Library is a library for reading and editing the meta-data of several popular audio formats: ID3v1, ID3v2 for MP3 files, Ogg Vorbis comments and ID3 tags and Vorbis comments in FLAC, MPC, Speex, WavPack, TrueAudio, WAV, AIFF, MP4 and ASF files. (Src) | LGPL and MPL v1.1 |

## Benchmarking

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
benchmark | A library to benchmark code snippets, similar to unit tests | Apache 2.0 | cmake
Celero | A feature-rich C++ Benchmark Authoring Library/Framework. Supports Windows, Linux, and OSX using C++11. | Apache | cmake
Criterion | A micro-benchmarking library for modern C++ | MIT | header-only; cmake
gperftools | The 'Google Performance Tools' includes a high-performance, multi-threaded malloc implementation plus tools for benchmarking heap allocation and CPU utilization. | BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" | configure
nanobench | A simple, fast, accurate single-header micro-benchmarking functionality for C++11/14/17/20. (Src) | MIT | header-only; cmake
picobench | A tiny (micro) micro-benchmarking library | MIT | header-only; cmake
plf::nanotimer | A lowest-overhead, cross-platform simple timer class for benchmarking. | zlib | header-only

## Communication

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
ACE | Asynchronous networking, event de-multiplexing, messaging (Src) (Doc) | Custom | make
Apache Thrift | The Apache Thrift software framework, for scalable cross-language services development, combines a software stack with a code generation engine to build services that work efficiently and seamlessly between C++, Java, Python, PHP, Ruby, Erlang, Perl, Haskell, C#, Cocoa, JavaScript, Node.js, Smalltalk, OCaml and Delphi and other languages. (Src) | Apache-2.0 | cmake, vcpkg
Boost.Asio | Asynchronous and synchronous networking, timers, serial I/O | BSL-1.0 |
Boost.Beast | An HTTP and WebSocket library built on top of Boost.Asio | BSL-1.0 |
Breep | An event based, high-level, peer-to-peer library, allowing users to directly send and receive objects. | European Union Public License 1.1 | cmake
brpc | An industrial-grade RPC framework used throughout Baidu, with 1,000,000+ instances and thousands kinds of services. (Src) (Doc) | Apache 2.0 | cmake
C++ REST SDK | An asynchronous HTTP client and listener, asynchronous Stream, URI, JSON | MIT | cmake
cpp-httplib | A C++11 single-file header-only cross platform HTTP/HTTPS library | MIT | header-only; cmake
cpp-netlib | A C++ Network Library | BSL-1.0 | cmake
cppsimpleuri | A modern C++ uri & query parser | MIT | cmake
cpr | A modern C++ HTTP requests library | MIT | cmake
Crow | A C++ micro web framework (inspired by Python Flask) | BSD-3-Clause | header-only; cmake
curlpp | C++ wrapper for libcURL (CURL library). (Src) |  | cmake, vcpkg
DumaisLib | Various utilities such as WebServer, JSON, WebSocket server, REST framework (a library for creating a REST API in your c++ app) | MIT | make
EasyHttp | A cross-platform HTTP client library with a focus on usability and speed, supporting http response caching and more. | MIT | cmake
eCAL | A high performance inter-process communication library | Apache 2.0 | cmake
fineftp-server | An FTP-server library for Windows and Unix | MIT | cmake
FPNN | Fast Programmable Nexus Network. High performance fully asynchronous RPC service framework. Simultaneously supporting HTTP, WebSocket, TCP, and reliable UDP. Support the development of ultra-high load servers, with corresponding client SDKs. | 未知 | make
gRPC | A modern open-source high performance RPC framework that can run in any environment. (Src) (Doc) | Apache-2.0 | bazel, cmake, vcpkg
gsoap | A C/C++ development toolkit for XML data bindings, fast WSDL/SOAP/XML Web services, WS-Security, JSON/XML-RPC RESTful services | GPLv2 |
hmbdc | A lightweight and high performance C++17 message pub/sub middleware framework/lib |  | header-only
HTTPP | A simple, C++14, production ready HTTP-server built on top of Boost and a client built on top of libcurl. | BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" | cmake, make
IXWebSocket | An open-source WebSocket + HTTP library without dependency, supports SSL and the per message deflate WebSocket extension. | BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" | cmake, make
KCP | A fast and reliable ARQ protocol that helps applications to reduce network latency. | MIT | cmake
libashttp | An asynchronous HTTP client library | GNU Lesser General Public v3.0 |
libjson-rpc-cpp | A framework that provides cross-platform JSON-RPC (remote procedure call) support for C++, fully JSON-RPC 2.0 & 1.0 compatible. | MIT | cmake, conan
libnavajo | A C++ framework including a fast multithreaded http server, HTML5 Websockets, SSL, X509 and HTTP authentification, compression, cookies and advanced session management, IPv4 and IPv6 (CeCILL-C). | CeCILL-C FREE SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT | cmake
libtins | A network packet crafting and sniffing library (Src) (Doc) | BSD-2 | cmake, vcpkg
LiteNetLibPP | A lightweight reliable UDP library for games | MIT | cmake
mailio | MIME and email library | BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" | cmake
nanomsg | A fast message queue, zeromq successor |  |
netif | A C++14 library for getting network addresses on Windows, Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD. | BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" | header-only; cmake
nghttp2 | HTTP/2 C Library and tools (server, client, proxy and benchmarking tools) | MIT | cmake, configure
ngrest | A fast and easy in use JSON RESTful Web Services Framework | Apache 2.0 | cmake
nng | A fast message queue, nanomsg successor |  |
Oat++ | A Web Framework: REST-API and Request implementation (Src) (Doc) | Apache 2.0 | cmake
omniORB | The fastest, complete and portable CORBA ORB implementation in C++ |  |
OpenDDS | DDS (Data Distribution Service) implementation |  |
Paho MQTT | A modern C++ client for MQTT from Eclipse |  | cmake
paozhu | A C++20 Web Framework Support HTTP/2 ORM WebSocket | MIT | cmake
PcapPlusPlus | Multi-platform C++ network sniffing and packet parsing and crafting framework. Provides C++ wrappers for many popular packet processing engines such as libpcap, Npcap, WinPcap, DPDK, AF_XDP, and PF_RING. (Src) | Unlicense | conan, homebrew, cmake, vcpkg
POCO | Networking: encryption, HTTP; Zip files (Doc) |  |
rest_rpc | A C++11, high performance, cross-platform, easy to use RPC framework. | MIT | cmake
restbed | A cross-platform feature rich framework brings asynchronous RESTful functionality (secure communication over HTTP) to C++14 applications. | License | cmake
restc-cpp | Accessing JSON API's from C++. HTTP Client, native C++ class to/from JSON serialization, asynchronous IO trough boost::asio coroutines. C++14. | MIT | cmake
restful_mapper | ORM for consuming RESTful JSON APIs in C++ |  | cmake, make
seastar | A high performance server-side application framework, based on C++14/C++17. | Apache 2.0 | cmake, etc.
Silicon | The Silicon C++14 Web Framework: Fast and Robust Web APIs | MIT | cmake
sockpp | A simple, modern C++ socket library | BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" | cmake
stream-client | A lightweight Boost-based client-side socket/connector/socket pool/resolver | Apache 2.0 | header-only; cmake
tacopie | A C++11 TCP Library | MIT | cmake
TAO | CORBA |  |
taox11 | A C++11 based CORBA implementation | MIT |
Unicomm | Asynchronous networking, high-level TCP communication framework |  |
uvw | A libuv (cross-platform asynchronous I/O) wrapper in C++17 | MIT | header-only; cmake
WNetWrap | A WinInet wrapper in C++ | MIT |
wvstreams | A C++ networking library including UniConf and a convenient D-Bus API | GPL |
zeromq | A fast message queue |  |

## Concurrency

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
AdaptiveCpp | Provides a SYCL and C++ parallel STL offloading compiler and runtime system for CPUs and GPUs from NVIDIA, AMD, Intel | BSD-2-Clause | cmake
Asyncpp | An asynchronous c++ library that provides various concurrent operations | MIT | cmake
BlockingCollection | C++11 thread safe, multi-producer, multi-consumer blocking queue, stack & priority queue class | GPL-3.0 | header-only
Boost.Atomic | Provides atomic data types and operations on these data types, as well as memory ordering constraints required for coordinating multiple threads through atomic variables. | BSL-1.0 |
Boost.Compute | A GPU/parallel-computing library for C++ based on OpenCL. | BSL-1.0 | cmake
Boost.Context | A C++11 library that provides a cooperative multitasking abstraction on a single thread. | BSL-1.0 |
Boost.Interprocess | Simplifies the use of interprocess communication and synchronization mechanisms and offers a wide range of them: shared memory, memory-mapped files, semaphores, mutexes, condition variables and upgradable mutex types, named versions of the synchronization objects, file locking, message queues. | BSL-1.0 |
Boost.Lockfree | Provides non-blocking (aka lock-free) concurrent data structures: a queue, a stack, and a ringbuffer (spsc_queue). | BSL-1.0 |
Boost.MPI | A C++-friendly interface to the standard Message Passing Interface | BSL-1.0 |
Boost.Thread | Enables the use of multiple threads of execution with shared data and means for synchronizing data between the threads. | BSL-1.0 |
concurrencpp | Modern concurrency for C++. Tasks, executors, timers and C++20 coroutines. | MIT | cmake
dispenso | High-performance concurrency for C++. parallel_for, Futures, pipelines, timers, timed/periodic tasks, and concurrent data structures. | MIT | cmake
Highway | Provides performance-portable, length-agnostic SIMD/vector intrinsics. Supports: SSE3, SSE4, AVX*, NEON, SVE*, WASM SIMD, RISC-V, POWER. (Doc) | Apache-2.0 | cmake
HPX | A general purpose C++ runtime system for parallel and distributed applications of any scale (Doc) | BSL-1.0 | cmake, vcpkg
Intel TBB | Intel® TBB is a cross-platform C++ library for shared memory parallel programming and heterogeneous computing. The library provides: generic parallel algorithms, concurrent containers, a scalable memory allocator, work-stealing task scheduler, and low-level synchronization primitives. (Src) (Doc) | Apache-2.0 or Commercial | cmake, make
KOKKOS | A programming model for writing performance portable HPC applications, using CUDA, HIP, SYCL, HPX, OpenMP and C++ threads as backends (Doc) | Custom | cmake, make
libopenmpi | The Open MPI Project is an open-source Message Passing Interface implementation | 3-clause BSD |
libsimdpp | A portable zero-overhead C++ low level SIMD library. | Boost | header-only; cmake
MPL | A C++-17-friendly interface to the standard Message Passing Interface | BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" | header-only; cmake
MutexGear | A mutex-only synchronization (wheel, rwlock, work queues) C/C++11 library | The MutexGear Library | configure, msvc, make
OpenMP | The OpenMP API specification for parallel programming |  |
PoCL | A portable retargetable open-source (LLVM based) implementation of the OpenCL standard. (Src) (Doc) | MIT | cmake
RaftLib | A C++17 stream-like concurrent actors that enable parallel data-flow computations | Apache-2.0 | cmake
SObjectizer | A small cross-platform framework for concurrent and event-driven applications in C++ by using actor and publish-subscribe models. | BSD-3-Clause | cmake, vcpkg, conan
stdgpu | Efficient STL-like Data Structures on the GPU | Apache 2.0 | cmake
subprocess | C++17/20 cross-platform library for running subprocesses | MIT | cmake, teaport
Taskflow | Parallel Task Programming in Modern C++ | TASKFLOW MIT | cmake
task-thread-pool | Fast and lightweight thread pool for C++11 and newer. | BSD-2-Clause or MIT or BSL-1.0 | cmake, vcpkg, single header
ThreadPool | A simple light-weight thread pool | BSD-3-Clause | header-only; cmake, make
thread_pool | A modern, fast, lightweight thread pool | MIT | cmake
Thrust | STL-like parallel algorithms and data-structures on top of CUDA, TBB, or OpenMP | Apache v2.0, Boost v1.0. | cmake
TimerAlarm | Timers and Alarms based on threads. | BSD-3-Clause | header-only; cmake, make
VexCL | A C++ vector expression template library for OpenCL, CUDA, OpenMP | MIT | cmake
ViennaCL | Linear algebra and algorithms with OpenMP, CUDA, and OpenCL backends. (Src) (Doc) | Custom | cmake
Xenium | A C++17 library that provides various concurrent data structures and reclamation schemes. | MIT | header-only; cmake

## Configuration

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Boost.Program_options | The library allows to obtain program options, that is (name, value) pairs from the user, via conventional methods such as command line, config file, and environment variables. | BSL-1.0 |
figcone | Read JSON, YAML, TOML, XML or INI configuration by declaring a struct | MS-PL | cmake
gconfmm | A cross-platform (official) C++ interface for the popular GUI library GTK, including typesafe callbacks, and a comprehensive set of widgets that are easily extensible via inheritance. gtkmm uses STL, including strings, containers, and iterators. UTF8 is supported. (Src) (Doc) | LGPLv2.1 | autotools, meson, make
libconfig | A simple cross-platform C/C++ library for processing structured configuration files ("*.cfg") (Src) (Doc) | LGPL 2.1 | autotools, cmake, make
libconfini | An cross-platform INI parser written in C (Doc) | GPL-3.0 | autotools, make
uconfig | A lightweight C++17 configuration library | Apache 2.0 | header-only; cmake

Command Line

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Argh! | A minimalist argument handler. | BSD 3-Clause | header-only; cmake, vcpkg
argparse (hbristow) | A slimline C++ class for parsing command-line arguments, with an interface similar to python's class of the same name. | BSD |
argparse (morrisfranken) | A lightweight library for parsing command line arguments in an elegant manner. | Apache 2 | header-only; cmake
argparse (p-ranav) | A command-line argument parser for C++17 | MIT | header-only; cmake, vcpkg
args | A simple C++ argument parser library. | MIT | header-only; cmake, conan, meson, vcpkg
Boost.Program_options | The library allows to obtain program options, that is (name, value) pairs from the user, via conventional methods such as command line, config file, and environment variables. | BSL-1.0 |
CLI11 | A C++11 command line parser that provides a rich feature set with a simple and intuitive interface. | BSD-3-Clause | header-only; cmake, meson, vcpkg
clipp | Powerful & Expressive Argument Parsing for Modern C++. | MIT | header-only; cmake, vcpkg
cmd_line_parser | Command line parser for C++17. | MIT | header-only; cmake
cmdlime | A C++17 library for command-line parsing that provides a concise, declarative interface with support for sub-commands, validators, and the ability to choose either the GNU, POSIX, or X11 command-line options format. | MS-PL | cmake
cxxopts | A lightweight C++11/C++17 command-line arguments parser, supporting the standard GNU style syntax for options. | MIT | header-only; bazel, cmake
fire-hpp | Create fully functional CLIs using function signatures. | BSL-1.0 | header-only; cmake
flags | Simple, extensible C++17 argument parser. | Unlicense | header-only; cmake
gflags | A library that implements command-line flags processing. It includes built-in support for standard types such as string and the ability to define flags in the source file in which they are used. | BSD | cmake
structopt | Parse command line arguments by defining a struct. | MIT | header-only; cmake
tclap | A simple C++ template library for parsing command line arguments. The library provides a simple, flexible object-oriented interface. | MIT | cmake

CSS

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
mycss | CSS Parser |  |

HOCON

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
cpp-hocon | A C++ implementation of the HOCON format developed by Pupplet. |  |

JSON

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
ArduinoJson | C++98/11/14/17 JSON library for Arduino, IoT and embedded C++ | MIT | cmake
Boost.JSON | The JSON parsing, serialization, and DOM in C++11/17 | BSL-1.0 |
cajun-jsonapi | A C++ API for the JSON with an emphasis on an intuitive, concise interface that mimic standard C++ as closely as possible. |  | make
DAW JSON Link | A C++17 library providing static C++ bindings with type checking allowing of parsing directly to user data structures without library allocation, push/pull modes, allocator support, constexpr | BSL 1.0 | cmake
Glaze | One of the fastest JSON library (C++23) with direct memory serialization. Also supports BEVE and CSV. | MIT | cmake, conan, build2, vcpkg
jansson | A C library for encoding, decoding and manipulating JSON data with UTF-8 support | MIT | cmake, make
jeayeson | A very sane C++14 JSON library | BSD-3 | header-only
jios | JSON Input Output Streams | MIT | cmake
JOST |  |  |
json | Niels Lohmann JSON for C++11, featuring intuitive syntax | MIT | header-only; bazel, cmake, meson
Jsonifier | A few C++20 classes for extremely fast JSON parsing/serializing | MIT | cmake
JSON Voorhees | Killer JSON for C++11 (Doc) | Apache-2.0 | cmake
JSON++ |  |  |
json11 | A tiny JSON library for C++11, providing JSON parsing and serialization. | MIT | cmake
JsonBox | A C++ library used to read and write JSON with ease and speed. | MIT | cmake
jsoncons | A library for JSON and JSON-like data formats, with JSON Pointer, JSON Patch, JSONPath, CSV, MessagePack, CBOR, BSON, UBJSON. | Custom | header-only
jsoncpp | A library that allows manipulating JSON values, including serialization and de-serialization, while preserving comments. | MIT | cmake, conan, vcpkg
libjson |  |  |
minijson | A C++ DOM-less and allocation-free JSON parsing and serialization | Custom | cmake
Neyson | Lightweight A C++11 JSON Library | BSD-3-Clause | cmake
nosjob | A C++98 library for generating and consuming JSON data | MIT | make
qjson |  |  |
rapidjson | A fast JSON parser/generator for C++ with both SAX/DOM style API, supports UTF-8/16/32, optionally uses SIMD. (Doc) | Custom | header-only; cmake, vcpkg
simdjson | Parse gigabytes of JSON per second taking advantage of modern micro-architectures and parallelizing with SIMD (Doc) (Kino) | Apache-2.0 | cmake, vcpkg
struct_mapping | Maps JSON to and from a C++ structure | MIT | cmake
swxJson | The most convenient C++JSON library currently in use. Read and write complex structures at any level with just one function call. The performance is approximately half that of RapidJSON. | MIT | make
ThorsSerializer | JSON/BSON/YAML Input Output Streams | MIT | make
ujson | µjson is a small, C++11, UTF-8, JSON library | cmake |
yyjson | A high performance JSON library written in ANSI C | MIT | cmake

TOML

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
toml++ | TOML parser and serializer for C++17 and later |  |
toml11 | TOML parsing library based on C++11 |  |

XML

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
ai-xml | Serialize objects to and from XML by adding a single, minimal, function to a class. Uses libxml++ under the hood. | AGPL-3.0 | make
GPDS | A general purpose data serializer to serialize objects to and from XML. Uses TinyXML under the hood. |  |
gSOAP | XML data bindings |  |
libxml++ | The libxml++ is a C++ wrapper for the libxml XML parser C library. (Doc) | LGPL-2 |
pugixml | A light-weight, simple and fast XML parser for C++ with XPath support | MIT | cmake, conan
tinyxml |  |  |
tinyxml2 | Another and work in progress of TinyXML. |  |
Xerces |  |  |

YAML

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
yaml-cpp | A YAML parser and emitter in C++ | MIT | cmake

## Containers

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Boost.Bimap | A bidirectional maps library that offers associative containers such as `bimap<X,Y>` in which both `X` and `Y` can be used as a key. (Src) | BSL-1.0 |
Boost.Container | A library that implements several well-known containers, including STL-like containers, as well as recursive containers, and new useful containers: `flat_map`, `flat_set`, `flat_multimap`, `flat_multiset`, `stable_vector`, `static_vector`, `small_vector`, `devector`. (Src) | BSL-1.0 | header-only
Boost.Fusion | A library for working with heterogeneous collections of tuples. Provides a set of containers (`vector`, `list`, `set` and `map`), along with transformed presentation of their underlying data, a.k.a views." (Src) | BSL-1.0 |
Boost.Heap | An implementation of priority queues with more functionality and different performance characteristics, than STL has. (Src) | BSL-1.0 |
Boost.Pointer Container | Provides containers for holding heap-allocated objects in an exception-safe manner and with minimal overhead. (Src) | BSL-1.0 |
Boost.Tuple | Implements pre-C++11 n-`tuple` (a fixed size collection of elements) (Src) | BSL-1.0 |
Boost.Variant | Implements pre-C++17 `variant` (a safe, generic, stack-based discriminated `union` container) (Src) | BSL-1.0 |
C++ Allocators | STL conformant allocators for fixed size static and stack based memory + another conformant allocator that allows custom boundary allocation | BSD-3-Clause | cmake, make
cpp-btree | B-tree containers make better use of the CPU cache: `btree_map`, `btree_set`, `btree_multimap`, `btree_multiset`. (Src) | Apache-2.0 | header-only; cmake
DataFrame | C++ DataFrame for statistical, Financial, and ML analysis -- in modern C++ using native types and continuous memory storage | BSD-3-Clause | cmake, make, conan, vcpkg
eggs::variant | Eggs.Variant is a C++11/14/17 generic, type-safe, discriminated union. It is notable in particular for having very good constexpr support. | BSL-1.0 | cmake
Frozen | C++14 constexpr perfect-hashing-based immutable sets, maps, and algorithms. | Apache-2.0 | header-only; cmake
Immer | A library of persistent and immutable data structures | Boost | cmake
plf::colony | Unordered "bag-like" container which outperforms `std::` containers in high-modification scenarios while maintaining valid pointers to non-erased elements regardless of insertion and erasure. C++98/11/14/etc-compatible. See also P0447 (`std::hive`). (Src) | zlib | conan build2
plf::list | A std::list implementation which sacrifices range-splicing for cache-friendliness, yielding faster insertion, erasure and iteration. C++98/03/11/14/17/20/23/26/etc-compatible. (Src) (Doc) | zlib | —
plf::reorderase | An extension and optimization of the "swap-and-pop"/"move-and-pop" idiom for random access containers to increase random_access container erase performance, when post-erasure order is unimportant. Covers single, range and `std::erase_if`-style erasures. C++98/11/14/etc-compatible. (Src) | zlib |
plf::queue | A drop-in replacement container for the std::queue container adaptor with better performance than std::deque and std::list in a queue context. C++98/11/14/etc-compatible. (Src) | zlib |
plf::stack | A drop-in replacement container for the std::stack container adaptor with better performance than std::vector and std::deque in a stack context. C++98/11/14/etc-compatible. (Src) | zlib |
ring_span | A lite implementation of Arthur O'Dwyer's `ring_span`, a.k.a. circular buffer view. C++98- compatible. | BSL-1.0 | header-only; cmake
strict_variant | A realtime/embedded-friendly (i.e. `-fno-exceptions`/`-fno-rtti` compatible), never-empty `variant` targetting C++11. Fast, prevents many undesirable implicit conversions. | BSL-1.0 | cmake
Ygg | An intrusive C++11 implementation of high-performance containers and data structures such as a Red–black tree, an Interval tree and an Interval Map. | MIT | cmake

## Cryptography

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Botan | A cryptography Toolkit. (Src) | BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" | make
crypto++ | A free C++ Class Library of Cryptographic Schemes. (Src) | Boost | make
gnutls | A secure communications library implementing the SSL, TLS and DTLS protocols and technologies around them. (Src) | LGPL-2.1 | make
openssl | A robust, commercial-grade, full-featured toolkit for general-purpose cryptography and secure communication. (Src) | Apache-2.0 | make
TomCrypt | A fairly comprehensive, modular and portable cryptographic toolkit that provides developers with a vast array of well known published block ciphers, one-way hash functions, chaining modes, pseudo-random number generators, public key cryptography and a plethora of other routines. (Src) | public domain | cmake, make

## Databases

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Boost::MySQL | MySQL client library | BSL-1.0 |
cpp-redis | C++11 Lightweight Redis client: async, thread-safe, no dependency, pipelining, multi-platform. (Doc) | MIT | cmake
DTL | Makes ODBC record-sets look just like an STL container (Src) (Doc) |  |
EasyQtSql | A lightweight C++11 (Qt based) library for quick and easy SQL querying | MIT | header-only; qmake
Galera | The Galera Cluster is the synchronous multi-master replication library (Galera) and a Write Set Replication (WSREP) API for MySQL/MariaDB (Src) | GPLv2 | cmake, scons
LevelDB | A C++ library developed by Google that handles billion-scale Key-Value data persistence storage. (Doc) | BSD-3 | cmake
libpqxx | The C++ connector for PostgreSQL (Src) | BSD-3 | cmake, make
lmdb++ | C++11 wrapper for the LMDB embedded B+ tree database library. | Unlicense | make
mongocxx | An official C++11 driver library for MongoDB (Doc). It offers optimized APIs for CRUD operations, indexing, and aggregation. Supporting BSON and featuring connection pooling and authentication mechanisms, it provides high-performance and scalable solutions for building C++ applications that leverage MongoDB. | Apache 2.0 | cmake
mysql++ | MySQL DB and tools |  |
nanodbc | A small, cross-platform, C++14 wrapper for the native C ODBC API | MIT | cmake
ODB | An open-source, cross-platform, and cross-database object-relational mapping (ORM) system for C++. ODB supports MySQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server relational databases as well as C++98/03 and C++11 language standards. | GPL2 and/or NCUEL |
OTL | A C++ template based database library for Oracle DB, ODBC and DB2-CLI. (Src) |  |
Pgfe | The PostgreSQL client (FrontEnd) API in modern C++ | Zlib | cmake
QTL | A friendly and lightweight C++ database library for MySQL, SQLite and ODBC. | Apache-2.0 | make
QUINCE | QUeries IN C++ Expressions (ORM+EDSL) | Boost |
QxOrm | An Object Relational Mapping (ORM) database library for C++/Qt, supports most common databases, serialization (JSON, binary, XML); standalone multi-threaded HTTP web server | GPLv3 or Proprietary |
redis-cpp | A lightweight C++17 client library for executing Redis commands. | MIT | header-only; cmake
redis-plus-plus | A Redis client written in C++ 11, and supports Redis Sentinel, Redis Cluster, pipeline, transaction, pubsub, connection pool and STL-like interface | Apache-2.0 | cmake
SOCI | A plugin-based database library that embeds SQL queries in a regular C++ code; supported backends include: DB2, Firebird, MySQL, ODBC (generic backend), Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQLite3. (Src) (Doc) | Boost | cmake
SQLAPI++ | A middleware C++ database library that supports multiple SQL database systems: Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, Sybase, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Informix, InterBase / Firebird, SQLBase, SQL Anywhere, ODBC, MariaDB. (Src) (Doc) | Custom | make
SQLiteCPP | A lean and easy to use C++ SQLite3 wrapper. | MIT | cmake, meson, vcpkg
SQLite ORM | An Embedded Domain-Specific Language (EDSL) for SQL, as understood by SQLite, for modern C++. | AGPL-3.0, MIT | header-only; cmake, vcpkg
sqlpp11 | A type safe embedded domain specific language for SQL queries and results in C++. | BSD-2 | cmake
taoPQ | A lightweight C++17 PostgreSQL client library | Boost | cmake

## Embedded languages bindings

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
AngelScript | A scripting language like C++. | ZLib |
ChaiScript | An easy to use embedded scripting language for C++. | BSD-3-Clause |
cling | An interactive C++ interpreter, built on top of Clang and LLVM to leverage RAD, creating scripts, embeddable scripting, and runtime code generation. (Src) | Custom / LGPL | cmake
ExprTk | A simple to use, easy to integrate and extremely efficient run-time mathematical expression parser and evaluation engine. ExprTk supports numerous forms of functional, logical and vector processing semantics and is very easily extendible. |  |
Jinx | A scripting language designed for video games. | MIT | cmake
spidermonkey.dev | Mozilla’s JavaScript and WebAssembly Engine. |  |
muparser | An extensible high performance math expression parser library written in C++. | BSD-2-Clause | cmake
PythonQt | A dynamic Python binding for the Qt framework. It offers an easy way to embed the Python scripting language into C++ Qt applications. | LGPL 2.1 |
lua | A lightweight multi-paradigm scripting language designed primarily for embedded use. C library. | MIT | make
sol2 | A modern C++ library binding to Lua. | MIT | header-only; cmake
v8pp | Binds C++ functions and classes into V8 JavaScript engine. | BSL-1.0 | header-only; cmake

## Embedded/Realtime

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
distortos | An object-oriented C++11 RTOS for microcontrollers (ARM, STM32) (Src) (Doc) | MPL-2.0 | cmake
ETL | Embedded Template Library - C++03, Portable template library tailored for low resource (embedded) platforms (Src) | MIT |
QP/C++ | RTOS kernel: Real-Time Embedded Frameworks based on active objects & state machines | GPLv3 |
µcuREST | C++11 REST/JSON server framework for microcontrollers |  |

## File metadata

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
exempi |  |  |
exiv2 |  |  |
libkexiv2 |  |  |
rarian |  |  |

## Financial Calculations

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
DataFrame | A C++ DataFrame for statistical, Financial, and ML analysis -- in modern C++ using native types and continuous memory storage | BSD-3-Clause | cmake, make, conan
QuantLib | A quantitative finance Library - A free/open-source library for quantitative finance | modified BSD |

## Game Engine Architecture

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Anax | An open-source C++ entity system | MIT | cmake
Anura | A fully-featured game engine and the tech behind the Frogatto & Friends. | Custom Open Source | make, vcpkg
BOX2D | A physics engine | MIT | cmake
EntityPlus | A C++17 Entity Component System | BSD-1.0 | cmake
EntityX | A fast, type-safe C++ Entity-Component system | MIT | cmake
EnTT | A tiny library for game dev and more written in modern C++ | MIT | header-only; cmake, bazel, conan, vcpkg, brew, cppget

## General Multimedia

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Kigs-framework | A modular multi-purpose cross-platform framework | MIT |
openFrameworks |  | MIT |
SDL | Simple DirectMedia Layer: a cross-platform (Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and others), low level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, and graphics hardware via that platform's graphics API (OpenGL/Direct3D/Metal/Vulkan) (Doc) (Src) | zlib | cmake
SFML | Simple and Fast Multimedia Library; multi-platform (Windows, Linux, macOS and soon Android & iOS); provides a simple interface to ease the development of games and multimedia applications. It is composed of five modules: system, window, graphics (over OpenGL), audio and network. | zlib/png | cmake
SIGIL | Sound, Input, and Graphics Integration Library; a simple, cross-platform, minimalist library for text, shapes, input, audio, and 2D images. Supported platforms: Windows, Linux and Raspberry Pi | License | cmake

## Generic

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Abseil | An open-source collection of C++ library code from Google designed to augment the C++ standard library. (Doc) (Src) | Apache-2.0 | cmake
Abstract Intrusive Containers | More flexible than Boost.Intrusive, but not STL-compatible. |  |
Au | A C++14-compatible physical units library with no dependencies with emphasis on safety, accessibility, and performance. (Doc) | Apache 2.0 | header-only
BDE | The Bloomberg Development Environment core libraries from Bloomberg L.P. | Apache |
Better Enums | Reflective enums (enum to string, iteration, etc.) with constexpr support. | BSD-2 | header-only, cmake, make
bitfield.h | Bit-field structure facility, more portable/flexible than the base language facility. |  |
Boost | A large collection of generic libraries | BSL-1.0 |
CAF | The C++ Actor Framework (CAF) is an open-source C++11 actor model implementation featuring lightweight & fast actor implementations, pattern matching for messages, network transparent messaging, and more | BSD |
Cinder | A community-developed, free and open-source library for professional-quality creative coding in C++. (Doc) (Src) | Modified BSD | cmake
CommonPP | A multi-purpose library with a strong emphasis on getting metrics out of a project. | BSD |
composite_op.h | Basic class data member introspection, cumbersome and often non-re-entrant, but sometimes useful. |  |
cpp-mmf | A C++98 library that encapsulates memory-mapped-files for POSIX or Windows |  |
cxxomfort | Backports of C++ features (C++11 to C++03 and C++1y proposals to C++11/C++03). |  |
Dlib | Networking, threads, graphical interfaces, data structures, linear algebra, machine learning, XML and text parsing, numerical optimization, Bayesian nets, and numerous other tasks | Boost |
eventpp | A C++ event library for callbacks, event dispatcher, and event queue. With eventpp you can easily implement signal and slot mechanism, publisher and subscriber pattern, or observer pattern. | Apache 2.0 |
fcppt | Freundlich's C++ Toolkit (fcppt) is a collection of libraries focusing on improving general C++ code by providing better types and making use of functional programming. |  |
Folly | Facebook open-source library. A cross-platform library of C++14 components designed with practicality and efficiency in mind. (Doc) | Apache-2.0 | cmake, vcpkg
GSL | C++ Core Guidelines Support Library implementation, recommended by Bjarne Stroustrup, Herb Sutter and Co in C++ Core Guidelines | MIT | cmake, vcpkg
gsl-lite | A version of ISO C++ Guideline Support Library (GSL) for C++98, C++11 and later | MIT | header-only
GUL14 | General Utility Library for C++14 from DESY: Often-used utility functions and types, including String utilities, Statistics and Numeric functions, Containers, Debugging means, etc. (Src) | LGPL-2.1 | meson, vcpkg
History | Modern C++17 Undo/Redo Framework | Unlicense |
hspp | An experimental library to bring Haskell Style Programming to C++. | Apache-2.0 | header-only
IP-DOS (tm) | IdeaFarm (tm) Piggyback Distributed Operating System: A general purpose programming environment for the C++ language. | Proprietary Open Source | Open Watcom 2.0
JUCE | An extensive, mature, cross-platform C++ toolkit | GPL |
Kangaru | A dependency injection container for C++11 and C++14 | MIT |
Kerbal | Backports of modern STL facilities to previous standard. More features! More constexpr! | LGPL-3.0 | header-only; cmake
libsourcey | A cross-platform C++14 library for high speed networking and media encoding. HTTP, WebSockets, TURN, STUN, Symple and more. | LGPL-2.1 | cmake
LLNL/units | A run-time C++ library for working with units of measurement and conversions between them and with string representations of units and measurements | BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" | cmake
Loki | A C++ library of designs, containing flexible implementations of common design patterns and idioms. | MIT | make
match(it) | A lightweight pattern-matching library for C++17 with macro-free APIs. | Apache-2.0 | header-only
nonstd-lite | A list of *-lite repositories (e.g., span-lite, scope-lite, expected-lite) containing C++98/11 implementations of some of the proposed or already standardized C++17/20/23 library types, such as std::span, std::expected etc). | BSL-1.0 | header-only
nytl | A generic C++17 utility template library. | BSL-1.0 | header-only
OnPosix | C++ library providing several abstractions (e.g., threading, networking, logging, IPC, etc.) on POSIX platforms. |  |
Reason | XML, xpath, regex, threads, sockets, HTTP, SQL, date-time, streams, encoding and decoding, filesystem, compression | GPL |
SaferCPlusPlus | A safe compatible substitutes for unsafe C++ primitives, including pointers, int and std::vector. | Boost |
Smart Enum | `to_string`, `from_string` and more for your enums. | BSL-1.0 | cmake
units | A compile-time dimensional analysis and unit conversion library built on c++14 with no dependencies | MIT | header-only
yaal | Yet Another Abstraction Layer - algorithms, collections, arbitrary precision calculation, generic-DSL grammar driven parsers and more | CC BY-ND-NC 4.0 | cmake
Yato | A modern C++(14/17) cross-platform STL-styled and STL-compatible library with implementing containers, ranges, iterators, type traits and other tools; actors system; type-safe config interface. | Apache-2.0 | cmake
yomm2 | An open multi-methods for C++17 | Boost |
zoolib | ZooLib is a feature rich C++ toolkit. | MIT |

## GPS

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
gpsd | An open-source, cross-platform (Linux/Unix/BSD flavors, including Android and OS X) GPS-aware set of tools, such as a translator and replicator daemon for GPS devices, AIS radios, and other navigational sensors. gpsd is mostly written in C and Python, but also has C++ wrapper. gpsd is everywhere in mobile embedded systems. Every location-aware Android app is indirectly a gpsd client. (Doc) (Src) | BSD 2-clause | scons

## Graphic user interface

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Brisk | Cross-platform C++20 modular GUI framework, with reactive capabilities, and scalable, GPU-accelerated rendering. (Src), (Doc) | GPL2+/Proprietary | cmake, vcpkg
Dear ImGui | A lightweight GUI library for C++ with minimal dependencies, portable, render-agnostic, optimized for use in 3D-pipeline-enabled apps. | MIT | vcpkg
FLTK | A cross-platform C++ GUI toolkit (Linux, Windows, MacOS) that provides modern GUI functionality, and supports 3D graphics via OpenGL/GLUT. Designed to be small and modular. Includes an UI builder. | LGPL ver.2 |
nana | Cross-platform GUI programming in modern C++ style. (Src), (Doc) | BSL-1.0 | cmake, vcpkg
nanogui | A minimalistic cross-platform widget library for OpenGL 3.x or higher (Doc) |  |
OWLNext | Modern update to OWL for writing GUI applications in standard C++ on Windows |  |
Slint | A declarative GUI toolkit to build native user interfaces for desktop, embedded, and microcontrollers. (Src), (Doc) | GPL 3, Royalty-free, or Commercial | cmake
tiny file dialogs | A set of C/C++ cross-platform file dialogs (no init, no main loop, 6 modal function calls) |  | header-only
U++ | A cross-platform (Windows, GNU/Linux, macOS) rapid application development framework with bundled IDE. C++17 Compatible. (Doc) (Src) | BSD-3-Clause | make
WxWidgets | A free and open-source cross-platform (Windows, GNU/Linux, macOS) C++ framework for writing advanced GUI applications using native controls. (Doc) | Modified LGPL | cmake, make
xtd | A modern C++17/20 framework to create console, GUI and unit tests applications on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. (Src) (Doc) | MIT | cmake

CopperSpice

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
CopperSpice | A set of C++ libraries used to develop cross-platform software applications. It uses modern idiomatic C++ and integrates seamlessly with the STL. CopperSpice was derived from the Qt framework. (Doc) (Src) | LGPL-2.1 | cmake
CsSignal | A standalone C++ thread aware signal/slot library | LGPL-2.1 | cmake
CsString | A standalone C++ Unicode aware string library | LGPL-2.1 | cmake
libGuarded | A standalone C++ multithreading library for managing access to shared data | LGPL-2.1 | cmake

GTK+

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
evince |  |  |
flowcanvas |  |  |
glibmm |  |  |
goocanvasmm |  |  |
gtkmm | A cross-platform C++ interface for the GTK+ GUI library. | LGPL |
libglademm |  |  |
libgnomecanvasmm |  |  |
webkitgtk |  |  |

Qt

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
libdbusmenu-qt | A small library designed to make sharing and displaying of menu structures over DBus simple and easy to use. It works for both QT and GTK+ and makes building menus simple. |  |
Qt | (Doc) (Src) |  |
QuickQanava | A C++14 network/graph visualization library / Qt node editor. | BSD 2.0 | cmake
qwt5 | Qt Widgets for Technical Applications |  |
qwtplot3d |  |  |

U++

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
U++ | A C++ cross-platform rapid application development framework focused on programmers productivity. It includes a set of libraries (GUI, SQL, etc.), and an integrated development environment. (Src/Bin) | BSD |
upp-components | A collection of 3rd party packages for U++ like `TerminalCtrl`, `MessageCtrl` etc. | BSD-3-Clause |

## Graphics

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
bgfx | A powerful cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, Web) 2D/3D graphics rendering shader-aware library with rendering backends: DX, OpenGL, Metal, WebGL, Vulkan etc. (Doc) | BSD-2 | make
cairomm | A C++ wrapper for the cairo graphics library that is 2D library with support for multiple output devices: X Window, Quartz, Win32, image buffers, PostScript, PDF, SVG, OpenGL (experimental). | LGPL |
dfpsr | A 2D, 3D and isometric software renderer with desktop GUI toolkit, minimalistic dependency, designed for long time maintenance and can run without any 3D accelerated drivers | zlib |
gegl | Generic Graphics Library (GEGL) is a data flow based image processing framework, providing floating-point processing and non-destructive image processing capabilities. (Src) | LGPL |
io2d | A reference implementation of P0267, the proposed 2D graphics API for ISO C++ | BSL-1.0 | cmake
nanovg | An antialiased 2D vector drawing library in C on top of OpenGL for UI and visualizations, with ports to DX11/Metal/bgfx. | zlib |
nux | An OpenGL toolkit | LGPL v3 |
pangomm | The official C++ interface for the Pango font layout library. (Src) | LGPL v2.1 | make
Skia | An open-source 2D-graphics library written in C++. Skia Graphics Engine is used in Google Chrome, Chrome OS, Mozilla Firefox, Android, LibreOffice, Flutter, etc. Skia has several back-ends: software rasterization, (PDF) output, OpenGL, SVG, etc. | New BSD |
TXLib | TX Library is a tiny 2D graphics library for Win32 written in C++. |  |
ULIS | A cross-platform C++14 library for generic digital image processing, 2D software rasterizer, unlimited image formats (`u8`, `u16`, `u32`, float, double), Custom bit-ordered memory layout, All Photoshop pixel blending modes + 11 additional modes, Color models (RGB, HSL, HSV, CMYK, ...), Color-managed pipelines, Color Space support (icm profiles and device-independant), Optimized algorithms with multithreading, Optimized algorithms with SIMD Extensions (SSE2), Image pools and caches for optimisations, Memory storage of animated image sequences. | Custom (free-of-charge for non-commercial purposes only) | cmake

## Graphics (3D)

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
assimp | 3D model loading | BSD-3 | cmake, vcpkg
bgfx | A cross-platform, graphics API agnostic, "Bring Your Own Engine/Framework" style rendering library. | BSD-2 | make, vcpkg
Diligent Engine | A modern cross-platform low-level 3D graphics library. | Apache-2.0 | cmake
Epoxy | A modern successor to GLEW. Abstracts difference between some kinds of GL contexts, which makes it sometimes simpler to use than GLEW. Used by GTK+ project since 2015. | MIT | meson, vcpkg
G3D | The G3D Innovation Engine is a fully featured, open-source, cross-platform (Windows, Linus, Mac OS) 3D game engine written in C/C++. G3D is used in commercial games, research papers, simulators, and university courses. It supports real-time and offline hardware rendering, ray tracing, model loading, linear algebra, and GP-computation on GPUs. Supports 3DS, OBJ, MP4, PNG, JPG, MD3 and many other formats, includes a native OpenGL skinnable GUI. (Src) (Doc) | BSD-2 |
GLAD | A customizable, lightweight library for loading OpenGL functions |  |
GLEW | An OpenGL functions loader (Src) | EXTGL/BSD/MIT | make, vcpkg
GLFW | An OpenGL window manager (Src) (Doc) | zlib/libpng | cmake, vcpkg
GLM | The OpenGL Mathematics (GLM) is a C++ mathematics library for graphics software based on GLSL spec. | The Happy Bunny / MIT | header-only; cmake, vcpkg
Godot | A full featured multi-platform 2D and 3D game engine in C++17 with a GUI editor written on itself and a python-inspired script language. | MIT | scons
hlsl++ | A C++ math library for rendering using HLSL syntax. Supports SSE and NEON | MIT | header-only
Horde3D | A small open-source 3D rendering engine. It is written in an effort to create a graphics engine that offers the stunning visual effects expected in next-generation games being lightweight and as clean as possible. | EPL |
Irrlicht | The Irrlicht Engine is an open-source realtime 3D engine written in C++. It is cross-platform, using D3D, OpenGL and its own software renderers. | zlib/libpng | make, vcpkg
klein | A C++11/14/17 SSE-optimized Projective Geometric Algebra library for graphics and animation | MIT | cmake, vcpkg
Magnum | A lightweight and modular C++11/C++14 graphics middleware for games and data visualization (Src) | Custom | cmake
O3DE | The Open-source 3D Engine (former Amazon's Lumberyard) is a C++ multi-platform 3D engine to build AAA games, cinema-quality 3D worlds, and high-fidelity simulations. Includes physics simulation, script engine, networking, and more. (Doc) | Apache 2.0 | cmake
Ogre3D | The OGRE is an Object-Oriented Graphics Rendering Engine - a multipurpose visualization library, suitable for scientific visualization, games, simulation, virtual reality and other graphic projects. It is multi-platform and very robust, with a good documentation. | MIT | cmake, vcpkg
Open CASCADE | SDK for 3D CAD/CAM/CAE applications (Src) | LGPL-2.1 | cmake
OpenGL | 3D language, graphics and SDK for developing 3D applications. | Khronos (MIT) |
OpenSceneGraph | OpenSceneGraph is an open-source high performance 3D graphics toolkit, used by application developers in fields such as visual simulation, games, virtual reality, scientific visualization and modelling. (Src) (Doc) | Custom, GNU LGPL | cmake, vcpkg
Visionaray | A C++ ray tracing template library. | MIT | cmake
VTK | Visualization Toolkit (VTK) is an open-source software for manipulating and displaying scientific data. It comes with state-of-the-art tools for 3D rendering, a suite of widgets for 3D interaction, and extensive 2D plotting capability. | BSD-3 | cmake, vcpkg
Vulkan | A low-level API that removes many of the abstractions found in previous generation graphics APIs. This is great for delivering maximum performance, but has the side effect of exposing more complexity to the developer. Fortunately, several excellent tutorials exist to help clear this hurdle and get productive quickly. | Khronos (MIT) | make, vcpkg

## Images

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Adobe/boost GIL | A high-level generic library, focused on algorithms that operate on 2D images. Very limited I/O options. | BSL-1.0 |
agge | Anti-Grain Evolution. A 2D graphics engine for speed and quality in C++ | MIT | cmake
FreeImage | An Open-Source library project for developers who would like to support popular graphics image formats like PNG, BMP, JPEG, TIFF and others | GPLv2, GPLv3, FIPL |
FreeImageRe | A fork from the Open-Source library FreeImage v3.18 to support image codecs updates and adjust for comfortable usage. All original formats and plugins are maintained. | GPLv2, GPLv3, FIPL | cmake
GraphicsMagick | Reading, writing, and manipulating images in over 88 major formats. Forked from ImageMagick in 2002 | Copyright | Mercurial
SAIL | Reading and writing static, animated, multi-paged images along with their meta data and ICC profiles. Converting capabilities. Targets simplicity and speed. | MIT | cmake
stb | A set of C/C++ game-dev oriented libraries featuring image loader/writer/resizer, font text rasterizer, type-safe containers, ogg vorbis decoder, real-time DXT compressor, Perlin noise generator, lexer for pet DSLs, fast sprintf, and more. | MIT, Custom | header-only

Formats

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
djvulibre |  |  |
imagemagick |  |  |
Kaitai Struct C++ runtime |  |  |
libraw |  |  |
openexr |  |  |
poppler |  |  |
qimageblitz |  |  |
SVG++ |  |  |

Plotting

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Matplot++ | A gnuplot based C++ Graphics Library for Data Visualization. Matplot++ can take advantage of the following libs: OpenCV, OpenGL, LAPACK, BLAS, FFTW, JPEG, TIFF, ZLIB, PNG, GLAD, GLFW3. (Doc) | MIT | cmake
plotutils | The GNU plotutils package contains libplot, a C/C++ library for exporting 2-D vector graphics in many file formats, both vector and bitmap. libplot can animate 2-D vector graphics and uses a Postscript-like API for file export and graphics animations. | GPL |
sciplot | A modern C++ scientific plotting library powered by gnuplot, with the export to PDF, SVG, PNG, EPS, etc. | MIT | header-only; cmake, vcpkg

## Image Processing

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
dlib |  |  |
Halide | A C++-embedded DSL for high-performance processing of images and tensors. | MIT | cmake, vcpkg
ITK - Insight Toolkit | ITK is an open-source, cross-platform library that provides developers with an extensive suite of software tools for image analysis. Developed through extreme programming methodologies, ITK builds on a proven, spatially-oriented architecture for processing, segmentation, and registration of scientific images in two, three, or more dimensions. | Apache 2.0 | cmake
opencv |  |  |
OTB |  |  |

## Internationalization

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
gettext | GNU internationalization library. | GPL | make
ICU | International Components for Unicode is a mature, widely used set of C/C++ libraries providing Unicode and Globalization support for software applications. (Src) | icu4c/LICENSE | make
spirit-po | A small library which parses po-files and provides an interface similar to GNU libintl. Based on boost::spirit. | BSL-1.0 | header-only
uni-algo | Unicode Algorithms Implementation for C/C++ | MIT/Unlicense | cmake, conan, vcpkg

## Logging

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Backward | Printing nice Python-styled stack traces with colors and source snippets, especially on crashes. | MIT | header-only; cmake, conan
Boost.Log | A cross-platform logging library that is simple to use, extensible, and performant. | BSL-1.0 |
clutchlog | Single-header logging system which targets versatile DEBUGGING instead of service event storage. | BSD | cmake
glog | Google Logging Library for C++98 based on C++-style streams | License | bazel, cmake, vcpkg
Log4cplus | Cross-platform, C++17 Logging API (modeled after the Java log4j API) providing thread-safe, flexible, and arbitrarily granular control over log management and configuration. | BSD (two clause) or Apache 2.0 | Autotools, cmake, Visual Studio
Log4cpp | A library of C++ classes for flexible logging to files, syslog, IDSA and other destinations. | LGPL |
log4cxx | Apache log4cxx is a logging framework for C++ patterned after Apache log4j. (Src) | Apache | cmake
lwlog | An extremely fast synchronous and asynchronous C++17 logging library | MIT | cmake
Pantheios | A diagnostic logging API library, offering a combination of type-safety, efficiency, genericity and extensibility | BSD-style |
plog | A portable and simple log for C++ in less than 1000 lines of code | MPL-2.0 |
Quill | A cross-platform, C++14 Asynchronous Low Latency Logging Library | MIT | cmake
spdlog | A super fast C++ logging library | MIT | header-only; cmake, conan

## Error handling

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Boost.LEAF | A lightweight error-handling library for C++11: single-header format, no dependencies, no dynamic memory allocations, can be used with or without exception handling, multi-threading ready. (Src) | BSL-1.0 | header-only, cmake

## Math

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
alglib | ALGLIB is a cross-platform (Windows/POSIX/Linux) numerical analysis and data processing library. ALGLIB features include: Data analysis, Optimization and nonlinear solvers, Interpolation, Linear algebra and linear solvers, FFT and many others. | Free (GPL/Personal/Academic) and Commercial |
ArrayFire | A cross-platform (Windows/OSX/Linux) general purpose HPC (CPU/GPU/OpenCL/CUDA/GPGPU) library for parallel computing. ArrayFire domains are: Vector Algorithms, Image Processing, Computer Vision, Signal Processing, Linear Algebra, Statistics, and more. (Src) | Custom |
Boost.Math | Includes several contributions in the domain of mathematics: Floating Point Utilities, Mathematical Constants, Statistical Distributions and Functions, Statistics, Vector Functionals - Norms, Special Functions, Root Finding & Minimization Algorithms, Polynomials and Rational Functions, Interpolation, Quadrature and Differentiation, Filters, Complex Number Functions, Quaternions, Octonions, Integer Utilities (Greatest Common Divisor and Least Common Multiple), Series, Rationals and Continued Fractions. | BSL-1.0 |
Boost.Random | Provides a variety of generators and distributions to produce random numbers having useful properties, such as uniform distribution. | BSL-1.0 |
Boost.SafeNumerics | C++14, Guaranteed Correct Integer Arithmetic, a drop-in replacement for the built-in integer types. | BSL-1.0 | header-only
cpp-measures | A C++11 library to handle physical measures | MPL-2.0 | header-only
G+Smo | A cross-platform library for isogeometric analysis (Doc) | MPL-2.0 | cmake
GNU MP bignum C++ interface | A C++ convenience class interface that offers overloaded functions and operators. The GMP is a free C library for arbitrary precision arithmetic, operating on signed integers, rational and floating-point numbers. | GNU LGPL v3 and GNU GPL v2 |
libmpdec++ | A cross-platform C library (with C++ wrappers) for correctly-rounded arbitrary precision decimal floating-point arithmetic. | BSD-2-Clause | make, nmake
NTL | A Library for doing Number Theory. NTL is a high-performance, portable C++ library providing data structures and algorithms for manipulating signed, arbitrary length integers, and for vectors, matrices, and polynomials over the integers and over finite fields. | LGPLv2.1+ |
PCGrand | PCG is a family of simple fast space-efficient statistically good algorithms for random number generation. Unlike many general-purpose RNGs, they are also hard to predict. | Apache |
stats++ | Advanced, comprehensive statistical software: data collection and preprocessing, statistics, machine learning, and optimization, with open C++ source code. |  |
StatsLib | A template library of statistical distribution functions. | Apache-2.0 | header-only

Automata theory

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
yasmine | A C++11 UML state machine framework (Doc) (Src) | License |

Class Library for Numbers

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
BigNumber | A C++ class for creating and computing arbitrary-length integers | Apache 2.0 | cmake
Boost.Multiprecision | The Multiprecision Library provides integer, rational, floating-point, and complex types in C++ that have more range and precision than C++'s ordinary fundamental (built-in) types. | BSL-1.0 |
cln | CLN is a library for efficient computations with all kinds of numbers in arbitrary precision. | GPL |
CNL | Compositional Numeric Library - fixed-precision numeric types | BSL-1.0 | cmake, conan
fpm | A C++11 fixed-point math library that provides standard library's floating-point functionality on integers. Useful if your target platform lacks an FPU, or deterministic calculations required. | MIT | header-only; cmake
Universal Numbers | A C++17/20 template library providing plug-in replacements for the native arithmetic types (integer/decimal/fixed-point/floating-point/posits/logarithmic/interval) | MIT | cmake, vcpkg, conan

Computational geometry

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Boost.Geometry | Boost.Geometry (aka Generic Geometry Library, GGL), defines concepts, primitives and algorithms for solving geometry problems. Boost.Geometry contains a dimension-agnostic, coordinate-system-agnostic and scalable kernel, based on concepts, meta-functions and tag dispatching. Supported algorithms are: calculation of area, length, perimeter, centroid, convex hull, intersection (clipping), within (point in polygon), distance, envelope (bounding box), simplify, transform, and much more. The library supports high precision arithmetic numbers | BSL-1.0 |
CGAL | Computational geometry algorithms library | GPL-3.0 or commercial | cmake
PCL | Point Cloud library |  |
pmp-library | Polygon Mesh Processing Library |  |
Wykobi | Computational geometry library |  |

Graph theory

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Boost.Graph |  | BSL-1.0 |
CXXGraph | A C++17 library for graph representation, manipulation, partitioning and algorithms | AGPL-3.0 | header-only; cmake
GTpo | A C++14 directed graphs modelling library, part of QuickQanava project | BSD | qmake, cmake
LEMON | Library for Efficient Modeling and Optimization in Networks implements common data structures and algorithms focusing on combinatorial optimization, graphs and networks. (Doc) | License |
NGraph | A simple (Network) Graph library in C++ |  |
OGDF | Open Graph algorithms and Data structures Framework - is a C++ library for graph algorithms, in particular for automatic graph drawing. | GPL v2 or v3 |

Linear algebra

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Armadillo | A C++ template library for linear algebra and scientific computing featuring wrappers for OpenBLAS, Intel MKL, LAPACK, ATLAS, ARPACK, SuperLU and FFTW. Useful for ML, pattern recognition, DSP, bioinformatics, statistics, finance, etc. | Apache 2.0 |
Blasw | A C++11 BLAS and Parts of LAPACK Wrapper | BSD-3-Clause | header-only; cmake
Blaze |  |  |
Blitz++ | A C++ template class library that provides high-performance dense arrays and vectors, random number generators, and small vectors. | GPL-3.0, LGPL-3.0, Custom | cmake
Boost.uBLAS | A C++ template class library that provides BLAS level 1, 2, 3 functionality for dense, packed and sparse matrices. Uses expression templates. | BSL-1.0 |
C++ Matrix | High performance and accurate (e.g. edge cases) matrix math library with expression template arithmetic operators | BSD-3-Clause | cmake, make
DecompLib | A C++11 library to decompose a vector into a set of positive definite weighted basis vectors. | MIT | header-only
Dlib - linear algebra tools |  |  |
Eigen | A C++ template library for linear algebra: matrices, vectors, numerical solvers, and related algorithms. | MPL2 | cmake, conan
ETL |  |  |
IT++ |  |  |
Matrix | Easy-to-use Scientific Computing library in/for C++ available for Linux and Windows. | MIT | cmake
NumCpp | A C++ template library implementing the Python's NumPy | MIT | header-only; cmake, vcpkg, conan
PETSc | A suite of data structures and routines for the parallel solution of scientific applications modeled by partial differential equations. It supports MPI, and GPUs through CUDA or OpenCL, as well as hybrid MPI-GPU. |  |
Spectra | Sparse Eigenvalue Computation Toolkit as a Redesigned ARPACK is an open-source C++ library for large scale eigenvalue problems, built on top of Eigen linear algebra library (also open-source and header-only). (Src) | MPL-2.0 | header-only; cmake, vcpkg
Tense | A fast C++17 expression template matrix and tensor library | BSD-3-Clause | header-only; cmake
xtensor | A C++ library meant for numerical analysis with multi-dimensional array expressions. | BSD |

Machine Learning

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Dlib | A machine learning tools |  |
FANN | A Fast Artificial Neural Network library |  |
gaenari | A C++17 based incremental decision tree | Apache-2.0 | cmake
liblinear |  |  |
libtorch | A C++ frontend to the popular PyTorch Python library (backend is written in C++) | BSD-style | cmake
MLPACK | A machine learning package |  |
Shogun | A large scale machine learning toolbox |  |
stats++ |  |  |
tensorflow | An Open Source Machine Learning Framework for Everyone; provides stable C++ API and written mainly in C++ | Apache-2.0 | bazel

Numeral Calculations

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
LibBF | An arbitrary precision numerical calculation library developed by Bellard with a sample program that calculates π to billions of bits | MIT |

Optimization

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
ceres-solver | An open-source C++ library for modeling and solving large, complicated optimization problems. It is a feature rich, mature and performant library which has been used in production at Google since 2010. | Apache | cmake, conan
OptimLib | A C++11 library of numerical optimization methods for nonlinear functions. |  |

Symbolic expression manipulations

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
CasADi | A symbolic framework for nonlinear optimization and algorithmic differentiation. Supports C++ code generation for symbolic expressions and dynamic connection of compiled generated code. | LGPLv3.0 | cmake
ExprTk | The C++ Mathematical Expression Toolkit Library (ExprTk) is a simple to use, easy to integrate and extremely efficient run-time mathematical expression parser and evaluation engine. ExprTk supports numerous forms of functional, logical and vector processing semantics and is very easily extendible. | MIT | header-only
GiNaC | A library for creating integrated systems that embed symbolic manipulations together with more established areas of computer science (like computation-intense numeric applications, graphical interfaces, etc.) under one roof. | GPLv3 |
mathiu.cpp | A simple computer algebra system in C++17 | Apache-2.0 | cmake
SEMT | A compile-time symbolic differentiation | License | make
SymbolicC++ | A general-purpose computer algebra system | GPLv2 | autoconf
SymCC | A compiler wrapper which embeds symbolic execution into the program during compilation, and an associated run-time support library. In essence, the compiler inserts code that computes symbolic expressions for each value in the program. The actual computation happens through calls to the support library at run time. | GPLv3 | cmake
SymEngine | A standalone fast C++ symbolic manipulation library. | MIT | cmake
ViennaMath | A symbolic math library that enables a convenient instantiation, manipulation, and evaluation of mathematical expressions at run time and compile-time. | MIT | cmake

## Metaprogramming

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Boost.CallableTraits | A C++11/17 library for the compile-time inspection and manipulation of all 'callable' types. A successor to Boost.FunctionTypes. | BSL-1.0 | header-only
Boost.Hana | A new metaprogramming library for both types and values | BSL-1.0 |
Boost.Metaparse | A compile-time parser library, producing types, values, and metafunctions from compile-time strings | BSL-1.0 |
Boost.Mp11 | A C++11 metaprogramming library for compile-time manipulation of data structures that contain types. | BSL-1.0 | header-only
Boost.MPL | An original metaprogramming library, targeted at C++03, slow | BSL-1.0 |
Boost.PFR | A C++14 library for basic reflection (without macros): visiting members of a user defined type by index, IO streaming. | BSL-1.0 | header-only
Boost.Proto | A library for building expression template-backed EDSLs | BSL-1.0 |
Brigand | Uses eager metafunctions, optimized for best performance |  |
CoMeta | A lightweight C++14 metaprogramming library |  | header-only
Meta | Uses eager metafunctions, middle ground between metal and brigand wrt performance |  |
Metal | Uses eager metafunctions, 100% SFINAE-friendly |  |
refl-cpp | A modern compile-time reflection library for C++ with support for overloads, templates, attributes and proxies |  |
Refureku | A C++17 runtime reflection and code generation library | MIT | cmake
visit_struct | A miniature reflection library, providing structure visitors for C++11/14. Self-contained, 200-400 lines of code depending how you count. |  |

## PDF

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
HARU | A free, cross-platform, open-source library for generating PDF files. (Doc) (Src) | Zlib | cmake
JagPDF | A free, open-source library for generating PDF (Doc) | MIT |
PoDoFo | A free portable C++17 library to work with the PDF | LGPL-2.0 | cmake, conan, vcpkg
PDF-Writer | A high performance C++ library for creating, modifying and parsing PDF files | Apache-2.0 | cmake, conan, vcpkg

## Physics and Simulations

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Bullet | A physics simulation for games, visual effects, robotics and reinforcement learning |  |
HELICS | A co-simulation framework for synchronizing time and exchanging data between different types of simulators | BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" | cmake
ProjectCHRONO | An open-source multi-physics simulation engine |  |
ReactPhysics3D | A C++ physics engine library for 3D simulations and game |  |

## Robotics

Perception

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
GTSAM | Sensor Fusion, SLAM, SFM, VO, Computer vision (Src) | BSD | cmake
opencv | Computer vision and perception, Calibration, Feature Matching (Src) (Doc) | BSD, Apache 2 | cmake

## Serialization

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Boost.Serialization |  | BSL-1.0 |
C++ XML objects |  |  |
cereal | A C++11 serialization | BSD |
cista | A simple, high-performance, zero-copy C++ serialization & reflection library. (Src) | MIT | cmake
cppcodec | A C++11 library to encode/decode base64, base32 and hex with consistent, flexible API | MIT | header-only
GPDS | A general purpose data serializer to serialize objects to and from XML. Uses TinyXML under the hood. |  |
gSOAP | An accurate XML serialization |  |
iguana | A modern, universal and easy-to-use serialization engine developed in C++17, based on compile-time Reflection. Supported formats: JSON, XML, user-defined. | Apache-2.0 | cmake
jios | JSON serialization | MIT | cmake
protobuf | Protocol Buffers (a.k.a., protobuf) is Google's language-neutral, platform-neutral, extensible mechanism for serializing structured data, including .proto files compiler. (Doc) | Custom | bazel, cmake
rpnx-serial | A library that can (de)serialize types like std::map, std::vector, etc. |  |
Serio | A fast lightweight C++ serialization library | BSD-3-Clause | header-only; cmake
ThorsSerializer | A C++ serialization library for JSON | MIT | make
yaml-cpp |  |  |
YAS | Yet Another Serialization is a C++11 library w/o third-party libraries dependencies. Archives can be binary, text, JSON | Boost | header-only

Binary serialization

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
binn | A binary serialization library designed to be compact, fast, and easy to use, itself an implementation of the same name format. |  |
blobify | A C++17 library that infers the serialized layout from the structure definition alone. | Boost | header-only; cmake
bson-cxx | A C++11 implementation of BSON format. |  | scons
fast_ber | A C++11 high-performance serialization using BER/DER encoding rules. Encoding layout is defined by ASN.1 schemas. |  |
UBjsonCpp | A high-performance UBJson read-write library based on C++14 |  |

## Sorting

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Cpp-sort | A collection of various sorting algorithms in a simple package. | MIT |
Indiesort | A function template that allows std::sort (and other random access sort functions) to be used with non-random-access containers. It also increases the performance of sorting large objects in random-access containers and arrays | zlib |
Timsort | A stable sorting function template which outperforms which outperforms quicksort-based algorithms including std::sort, for reversed or semi-sorted data. | MIT |

## System

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Infoware | A C++ library for pulling system and hardware information, without hitting the command line. | Creative Commons v1.0 | cmake

## Terminal

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
cli | A cross-platform library for interactive command line interfaces in modern C++. | BSL-1.0 | header-only; cmake, make, nmake, vcpkg
cwidget | A high-level terminal interface library for C++, modeled on GTK+ and Qt, but using curses as its display layer | GPL v2.0 | make
replxx | A readline and libedit replacement that supports UTF-8, syntax highlighting & hints. |  |

## Testing

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
bandit | A human-friendly unit testing for C++11. (Src) | MIT | cmake
Boost.Test | A C++03/11/14/17 unit testing library, available on a wide range of platforms and compilers. (Src) | BSL-1.0 | cmake, b2
Catch2 | A modern, C++-native, test framework for unit-tests, TDD and BDD - using C++14, C++17 and later | Boost | cmake
cppunit | A C++ port of the famous JUnit framework for unit testing | LGPL-2.1 | make
CUTE | A C++ Unit Testing Easier (no reliance on static initialization for registration), integrated into Cevelop for TDD | MIT | header-only
doctest | A lightest feature-rich C++ single-header testing framework for unit tests and TDD | MIT | header-only; cmake
ELFspy | Testing in isolation with fakes and spies - Linux only | GPL-2.0 | make
faker-cxx | A modern C++20 Faker library for generating testing data. | MIT | cmake
Google Test | Google Testing and Mocking Framework. (Src) | BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" | bazel, cmake
lest | A C++11-native tiny framework for unit-tests, TDD and BDD (includes C++98 variant). | Boost | header-only; cmake
liblittletest | A portable testing framework | LGPL-2.1 | header-only
snitch | A lightweight C++20 testing framework. | Boost | cmake
tunit | A modern C++17 unit testing library on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. Office site | MIT | cmake

## Text

Coding

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
strsuite | A C++20 library to manage strings with different encodings | LGPL3.0 | cmake
uchardet | Guesses a string encoding, basically the same as the `uchardet` function in Python. | MOZILLA PUBLIC LICENSE v1.1 | cmake
win-iconv | A character set encoding conversion library for Linux and Mac. The Windows implementation of `iconv` is based on the Win32 Character Set Conversion API. | public domain | cmake

Diff/Patch

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
diff_match_patch | Create and apply patches for strings (requires Qt) | Apache 2.0 | qmake

Format

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
coformat | A companion C++ library for std::format to enable text colorization and styling. | public domain | header-only
fmt | An open-source formatting library providing a fast and safe alternative to C stdio and C++ iostreams. Prototype for C++20 std::format family. | License | cmake, conan

Parse

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
BNFlite | A lightweight grammar parser library | MIT | header-only
Boost.Spirit | A set of C++17 libraries for parsing and output generation implemented as Domain Specific Embedded Languages (DSEL) using Expression templates and Template Meta-Programming. The Spirit libraries enable a target grammar to be written exclusively in C++. (Src) (Doc) | BSL-1.0 | cmake
CTRE | Fast Compile-Time Regular Expressions with support for matching/searching/capturing during compile-time or runtime. | Apache-2.0 | header-only, cmake, vcpkg
lexy | A C++17 parser combinator library which allows you to write a parser by specifying it in a convenient C++ DSL with all the flexibility and control of a handwritten parser. Supports UTF-8/16/32. (Doc) | BSL-1.0 | cmake
PEGTL | Parsing Expression Grammar Template Library is a zero-dependency C++17 header-only parser combinator library for creating parsers according to a Parsing Expression Grammar (PEG). | Boost | header-only

Search

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
clucene | The CLucene is a cross-platform, full-featured, open-source indexing and searching engine/API. (Src) (Doc) | LGPL v2.1 | cmake
Step20 | Ukkonen's online algorithm for constructing Suffix tree, Manber's algorithm for constructing Suffix array. | MIT | header-only
xapian | An open-source search engine with indexing facilities (Src) (Doc) | GPL v2+ | make

Template Engine

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
inja | A template engine for C++17. | MIT | header-only; cmake, conan, vcpkg, etc.
Jinja2C++ | A C++14/17 implementation of Jinja2 templates | MPL-2.0 | cmake, conan

## Version Control

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
coo-semver | A C++ operation library for semantic version numbers. |  |
LibGit2 | A version control system Git's core library. |  |

## Video

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
crystalhd |  |  |
gstreamermm |  |  |
libmatroska |  |  |
libVLC |  |  |
mjpegtools |  |  |
OpenH264 | A multi-platform, multi-architecture, open-source library which supports H.264 encoding and decoding (Src) | BSD-2 Clause | meson

## Web

Library | Description | License | Configuration
--- | --- | --- | ---
Chromium Embedded |  |  |
cpp-jwt |  |  |
Drogon | A C++14/17 based HTTP web application framework running on Linux/macOS/Unix/Windows. |  |
ffead-cpp | A framework for Enterprise Application Development in C++, HTTP1/HTTP2/HTTP3 compliant, supports multiple server backends | Apache 2.0 | cmake
libhttpserver | A C++ library for building high performance RESTful web servers. Built upon `libmicrohttpd` to provide a simple API for developers to create HTTP services in C++. | LGPL-v2.1 | autotools
libkcddb |  |  |
liblastfm |  |  |
libmusicbrainz5 |  |  |
libnavajo |  |  |
Molybden | An SDK for building cross-platform C++ desktop apps with HTML/CSS/JS GUI. (Doc) (Src) | License | npm
oatpp | A powerful portable lightweight and zero-dependency web-framework for IoT and high-performance web-services. |  |
QtWebApp | HTTP(s) Server in C++ inspired by Java Servlets |  |
Tufão | An asynchronous web framework for C++11 built on top of Qt (Doc) | LGPL-2.1, GPL-2.0 | cmake
uri-template | URI Templates expansion and reverse-matching for C++ | Apache 2.0 | cmake
userver | The C++ Asynchronous Framework | Apache 2.0 | cmake
Wt | Widgets and building blocks for web apps, built-in security, PDF rendering, 2D and 3D painting, ORM, charting, authentication frameworks. (Doc) (Src) | GNU GPL or Commercial |

### See also

C documentation for Non-ANSI/ISO Libraries

### External links

1. | List of C++ unit testing frameworks — at Wikipedia
2. | A curated list of (awesome) header-only C++ libraries — at GitHub
3. | A curated list of (awesome) C++ and C libraries — at GitHub
4. | Boost C++ libraries — at Boost.org
5. | A huge list of C++ open-source games and frameworks — at GitHub.io

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